We can sleep at night!

I know I'd been agonizing - agonizing - over the issue. It'd filled my thoughts for days on end. It's been the sole topic of every coffeehouse, workplace, and dinnertime conversation for the last few years! And now - the suspense ends! The question has been settled! History is over!!!

Norm Coleman is NOT running for VP or President!

Praise the lord! No, not that we don't want to see a President Coleman (because we do, we do!) but the question has been settled. We can now breathe easier, knowing that Senator Coleman will be able to focus on the job we elected him for...

not being Fritz Mondale.


(pic from Norwegianity)

Tracking the Elusive Nihilixus Minnesotanus

In an attempt to live up to the praise of Mark (see new subhead), I've decided to reveal some deep details of who I am.

First, this thingy I picked up from Some Watery Tart, who also posts at Shakespeare's Sister:

Modern, Cool Nerd 73 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 26% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd. Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)! Congratulations! Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 82% on nerdiness You scored higher than 83% on geekosity You scored higher than 40% on dork points

The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos

Then, we move to the always popular Political Compass:

The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -9.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.59

which just goes to show I'm a raging anarcho-syndicalist. Who knew?

Why we blog: the filters of the corporate media

Why the hell do we do it? Self-aggrandizement, sure, but more than that. We have a story to tell, and it's a story we can't seem to find elsewhere. For left-political bloggers, from lowly nihilix to mighty dKos, it's because we're systematically shut out of the system.

Why does it seem that our 'free press' is nothing more than a right-wing propaganda machine? Why do I always call it the 'corporate media' and not the Main Stream Media (or MSM, or some other crap?)

Why did I spend my time studying linguistics and not reading Chomsky on politics?

Enough of the rhetorical questions. One of the biggest things we have to realize is that our corporate media system is totally, irredeemably biased against us. That's us on the left, that's us not on the top, that's 85% of the American public. (Not counting the 10% of the well-off radical religious right, the 4% of the ownership class, and the 1% who are the dudes with all the levers of power in their hands. The ultra-rich, in other words.)

Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann laid it out in Manufacturing Consent. It's called the Propaganda Model, and it consists of five filters that operate in our media world and allow the deep level of mind control that the powerful exert in this country. It's the basic text of any real media critic. And here it is - or at least, here's the Codex Nihilix version.

We begin with 'raw' news. All the things that are going on in the world, that people could conceivably be interested in.

Filter 1 - Money/Ownership
This first filter - —the massive financial requirement - —is an enormous hurdle for anyone wishing to establish a place in the media market. Only the wealthy (—the enormously wealthy) —need apply. As a result, every year the media is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. This can be clearly seen in Fox News, where Roger Ailes has created an explicit right-wing propaganda machine (and in other parts of the Murdoch News empire.) Both Sinclair Broadcasting's Stolen Honor and Disney's Path to 9/11 show this as well.

Filter 2 - Advertising
Advertising distorts the news because it makes a publication accountable to it advertisers more than to its readers, listeners and/or viewers. For example, programs that raise concern over environmental or human rights issues that are consequences of the corporate system are not likely to be well-received at any network. Programs that create doubt over the way big business operates do not sell to large corporate sponsors. Similarly, sponsors object to programming that discusses disturbing and complex issues as they may disrupt the "buying mood."” Media audiences are not thought of as “citizens but as “consumers. Sponsors want “entertainment that will offend the fewest possible and create no disturbance. This filter also operates in so-called 'public' media - PBS and local giant Minnesota Public Radio, where underwriters (the polite term in the public media arena for advertisers) exert control far over that of the actual dollars they spend.

Filter 3 - Reliance on selective information
In order to cut costs media outlets increasingly rely on information provided by government, business and 'experts'”. The news bureaucracies have developed an increasingly uncritical symbiotic relationship with governmental and business bureaucracies and rely on them to satisfy their needs for a steady flow of news at low cost. Many corporate and governmental agencies are more than willing to help. The Pentagon, for instance, has a public information operation that employs thousands and spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Many of the '“experts' that the mainstream media consults have been co-opted by big corporate or government interests by being funded, sponsored and placed on the payroll of these same corporate or government interests. The same voices can be heard again and again - because they're easy, they won't rock the boat.

Filter 4 - Bullying
Chomsky and Herman call this “flak,” but it really just consists of threatening -– or bullying –- media outlets to get the coverage you want. Flak is an insider'’s word for negative reactions to media statements. The capacity to generate flak that is truly threatening is proportional to power. Those in positions of power and influence can generate flak directly by arranging letters or phone calls from the White House to anchormen or producers, or threats from ad agencies or big sponsors to pull advertising or to sue. The powerful can also create flak indirectly by complaining against the media to its employees and stockholders, generating advertising or press that denigrates the media, funding right-wing monitoring or think tank operations that attack the media, or funding political campaigns of candidates who support their policies and will take a hard line toward media deviation.

Filter 5 - The Smear
Some viewpoints just don't get to count. For decades before the collapse of the Soviet Union, this was the 'anti-communism'” filter. Now the so-called '“War on Terror'” is fanatically being promoted as the central noble cause, the one unquestioned value in our culture other than making money. The voices of those who question the legitimacy or morality of what this 'war'” really stands for are seldom if ever heard in the mainstream corporate media - and certianly only recently have you heard many.

So this is why we blog. Because for a while, we get to own the press (Liebling, roughly - the freedom of the press goes to those who own one.) While the corporate media giants are in this playfield, they don't control it nearly to the extent that they do broadcast or major print media. (This is also why net neutrality is so important.)

This is also why it's important to support non-corporate media outlets. The Guardian in the United Kingdom is a non-profit. Crappy as it sometimes is, public media is generally better than corporate. Sites like the NewStandard and NarcoNews Bulletin are examples as well.

Taking a look at Sinclair Broadcasting's attempts to run the propaganda vehicle Stolen Honor during the 2004 election cycle can show how the model holds. The campaign against them began at the level of filter 4 - bullying. (Ok, when we do it it's not bullying. Well, yes it is. But it's on our side.) This created some heat, as well as some delcarations by Sinclair that they would do it anyway, first amendment yadda yadda. (I am a defender of the First Amendment, but broadcast media is different, as it's a supposedly-regulated monopoly. There are only so many channels that we can have in the TV and radio world, so the holders of those licenses may be held to a standard like - don't interfere in the election on the side of one candidate.)

Then, as people got more pissed, the advertiser boycott started. People were floating lists of all the stations, all the advertisers, and contact numbers. Since the election wasn't seen as a sure thing for the Preznit (and since, as anyone who pays attention knows, he only won because of mass corruption in Ohio and possibly New Mexico) and because he was pissing off a lot of America, some advertisers pulled their ads. And then more did. And Sinclair, getting hit in the bottom line, started to freak.

But the campaign really hit high gear when Sinclair's stock price started taking a hit. This is big stuff, friends. This is enough public pressure on a company that people are saying it's worth less than it was the day before. This is money out of the pockets of each of the bastard executives who hold all those shares and all those options. And this is when they compromised and decided to run something else - still a smear, but not what they wanted at all.

Now, look at Path to 9/11. There were a number of things different about this. There was still the outrage, but this time the propaganda was funded exteriorally - there were no advertisers to punish. The thing was ramrodded through in about three weeks, giving the anti-campaign less time to mobilize, and the ultimate owner was Disney, a monster corporate giant who had far deeper pockets than Sinclair, which was just a midsize regional chain of stations.

The five filters of the propaganda model. Know them. Love them. Use them.

Count Olbermann Strikes Again!

The vile fiend! How dast he strike at the heart of the Administration - the sacred duty of 9/11! Why, such calumny makes one think that the lessons of Senor Rove (that is to say - attack them where they are strongest) may have sunk into the vituperative soul of this one Keith Olbermann.



I would suggest that someone act to bring this flea-bitten cur to heel, but it appears that this is no joke at all.

Olbermann sent warning letter, white powder.

what a sad fucking world we live in.

Mike Cavlan, Green Senate Candidate

The Star Tribune (the Minneapolis daily paper, for those from out of town/in eine anderes Land) has an odd dichotomy between the editorial and the news departments. The paper routinely comes in as one of the top liberal corporate dailies - in its editorials - but the news reporting is heavily influenced by D. J. Tice, a conservative now listed as 'Team Leader'.

Doug (D.J.) Tice
Team Leader
dtice@startribune.com
612-673-4456

The paper's coverage of Greens has been excrable to non-existant, generally, so
this story was refreshing:

Cavlan steals show at Fifth District forum
Cavlan, who grew up in Northern Ireland, told a couple dozen high school students at an after-school forum to be wary of military recruiters and "do not allow them to tempt you with their toys and gifts and trinkets" because "they will never tell you the brutal, ugly realities of the conflict of war." ... Several students in the audience acknowledged they had been approached by military recruiters.

Republican congressional candidate Alan Fine, who teaches at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School, told Cavlan his speech was inappropriately graphic for the students. Cavlan shot back, "That's your opinion."

Cavlan also showed up on Minnesota Public Radio in the 'Also-Running' debate between himself and the Constitution party candidate for the Senate seat. The best point of that debate - although both candidates agreed on quite a bit, like Bush was lame and the invasion and occupation of Iraq was lamer - was when moderate hacktacular host Gary Eichten asked them their opinion of Bush. Cavlan said (and I misquote) that he never refers to him as the President, because he cheated in both 2000 and 2004. (Cavlan was one of the Green Party observers for the 2004 Ohio recount.)

Anyway, with the Klobuchar/Kennedy race looking like a blowout (I guess assholeish Republicans who are firmly linked to the President aren't doing too well in Minnesota this year, while appealing tough Democratic women are) this means that Cavlan could well be poised to grab the Greens major party status this year.

Cavlan's clear position on Iraq (get the heck out now, and it's about oil) compares favorably to Klobuchar's, which is (reduce the troop levels, invading was a bad idea.)

Further, the unceremonious dumping of the Klobuchar staffer who clicked an open link to the Kennedy ad agency's server shows that there is certainly a strain of 'Cover your ass' cowardly Democrat in her makeup.

So with a 10-point blowout in the works, if not more, maybe it's time to start looking at Cavlan. 'M just saying.

Return!

I was going to title this "I'm Baaack!" but a quick google image search gave over 25 other people who have used this. No points for originality.

Was a good weekend; met a family from the UK. "Blair is through. We've had it with him. He's shallow, and the War, and the privatizations... he's done. Probably get the Tories - not that I trust them. Maybe the Lib Dems will do it." (summary of political conversations)

Also: "I was having this pain. Left knee, right knee, hip - moving around. Nothing I was doing was helping - walking with a stick. Then she said - why not go and get as much Guiness as you can drink. So two days and some multi-vites later, it was gone!"

50-50, 300!

Since my dear sweet love (we need to be on the road by 9!) is running a little late (the levitating mice in the shoe closet had something to do with that, perhaps) I get a little more time to post!

The cryptic title refers to my rough stats, so far, in this blogger world. Since the first week of August, I've been pretty much daily (with a few breaks for trips and/or illnesses) so that makes about 50 days, 50 posts.

And while my own hits clutter the sitemeter, I'm guessing that it's about 300 hits on the site. Some of which are recurring, i.e., regular readers!

Mark at Norwegianity gets big mention here, as he not only reads, he comments. Shakespeare's Sister does as well. Whenever they link to me, my little corner of blogostan gets a relative rush of people. So do comments on Echidne.

Well, I hear the footsteps of a sweetie-out-of-the-shower, so TTFN!

Going to a wedding...

and I don't know what my access will be like, so perhaps no posts for a couple of days.

Noah at blanked-out is being thrown to the wolves. He's the blogger that found the Kennedy ad, and sent it to the Klobuchar campaign. Ms. McGinnis, the staffer fired? Totally lame.

Thing is, this kind of stuff is so not even near typical dirty-tricks it's not even funny.

The slimeballs who have followed in Rove's footsteps are making this a big deal, to try and get some mud splattered on the Democrat. Who is acting typically - CYA and C-ya!

grrr....

Fascism 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good!

Part 1 – Islamofascism? Oh, please…
Part 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists. (Eco 1)
Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash… (Eco 2)
Part 4 – Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)
Part 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it (Eco 4)
Part 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good! (Eco 5 and last)

The final post in the series on the Umberto Eco essay, Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. (1995)

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

Hmmm…. HIS will?

Yeah, most all fascists are anti-feminist. It's oh so macho, fascism is. Boys and their phallic toys, as Eco points out. So if you don't have the abilities to rise in the fascist ranks, and you don't want to get killt in an endless fascist war, what does that leave you? You (the man) get to rule the roost! Yeah!

I saw a couple of Nazi propaganda films in college. One of them, Hitlerjunge Quex, included a girl. Or maybe it only looked like a girl. Wait – it didn't look like a girl. A very butch looking young woman, pristine and severe, was the ideal. (Whereas the socialists youth camp had drinking, gluttonous eating, and sex in the woods. The Nazis had kids in uniforms and in rows with big bonfires. Mark me down for socialist youth camp.)

Needless to say, macho but not all faggy and shit.

Since American fascism is well entwined with reactionary Christianity…(dang spellchecker capitalized Christianity there… as some have pointed out, it's not really a Christian faith, but kind of loosely 'christ-based', or maybe Jesus-cultism.) … anyway, since the base culture out of which much American fascism grows is all biblical, we can see so much of the misogynist/anti-feminist crap that comes out of the Radical Right as fascist. Turning the clock back on reproductive rights, hatred and bigotry around homosexuality, the amazing bullshit that is chastity education (or whatever they call it) all are examples. Breeding another crop of soldiers for the Reich – that's what women are good for!

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

We iz for Da People. Da good people. Da Jesus-lovin', hard-workin', no welfare cheats or nuttin' People.

So you have a populist appeal – like the Preznit – which is totally fake, and is totally not based on the actual will of the people as represented by inconvenient accidents like actually democratic elections. Karl Rove and Bushboy know what Da People Really Want. But they ignore the real people. As Eco says, a Common Will is created – an artificial thing, a "theatrical fiction." And Our Leader knows that Will, and acts on it.

In our case, that will is moderated by God (or as JC General puts it, Republican Jesus) and God speaks special to our Leader.

Then there's this, from Eco's discussion of the point:

Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

Republicans running against Government. Nuff said.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

Many words have been written about the insanity that this regime gets to spout, that is busily typed down and relayed by our corporate media system. I don't even know where to start about this. Norm Coleman researches corruption in the oil-for-food program, which is dwarfed by the corruption of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Blue Skies Initiative (hah – I started to type Green Skies…) Victory Agenda. Don't criticize in time of war. War on Terror. It's the WMD/Dictator/Democracy in the Middle East/Fight Them There… which has always been the reason we invaded and occupied Iraq.

Eco closes his essay with this…

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

Commentary on this essay as a whole:

Eco is one of the more widely-quoted and referenced authors writing about fascism in the general press. His points are well-taken; we can see them in historical fascist regimes as well as seeing them reflected in our almost-maybe-do we call it-neo-fascist corporate neo-liberal neo-con Bush regime. But as one reader pointed out – what about the corporations?

Eco is a semiotician – someone who studies symbols. Although he has been rather Marxist in his day, his analysis stays away from the structural/economic – or materialist – points that you might otherwise expect. After all, it was his countryman Mussolini who is reputed to have said:

Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.

Next: What's up with industrialists and fascist regimes?

Fascism 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it

Part 1 – Islamofascism? Oh, please…
Part 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists. (Eco 1)
Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash… (Eco 2)
Part 4 – Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)
Part 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it (Eco 4)
Part 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good! (Eco 5 and last)

Further commentary on Umberto Eco's Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, (1995)

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

The eternal war. The endless enemies. War is, after all, the health of the state. And while we're at it, there will be pie in the sky, by and by.

There is a timeless sense to this – that we are in the eternal now, forever at the cusp of the story. As the Daily Show pointed out so well, we are safe, but we're not safe. Eco says that this need to stay between the time before, when all was good, and the end of the battle, is difficult for a fascist regime to maintain. But when you claim you make your own reality, you're halfway there to the forever loop.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

Oh geez – we don't hate the weak!

Welfare mothers. Sluts who want to kill their babies. Negroes and Mexicans who are forever childlike. Dirty hippies. Peaceniks spitting on the soldiers. Those who choose moral weakness, like homosexuals.

Of course, the followers of the fascist state are themselves weak, but they are told they are of the One True Good-category (Aryan race, Biblical Christian, Red-Blooded Amurrikan, what have you.) But there is a tension here, where the lower echelons have to identify with the positions of their superiors. I see a connection between this and the Corporate American ideal – where we all strive to become executives with corner offices, or we all agree that striving to become so is good.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

Army of One? Eco says it this way:

This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life.

Sounds like the kids at Jesus Camp are most of the way there!

Roundup Ready!!!

Nice. Right-wing thugs take over TV stations in Hungary. Woot.

The FCC, in proud apparatchik fashion, has been commissioning, and then sinking, studies of how their pro-corporate media whore policies have really sucked. First this, now that. Grr! Makes me want to jump to the end of the (really soon to be finished) fascism list: fascists speak Newspeak. (Come on, man! You hold the left and and I'll feed it into the Memory Hole!)

Love this:

Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush -- these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."

Getting the loyal god-soldiers ready to die when this regime turns to jackboots. Them's holy jackboots, son!


Racist Republicans? In Georgia??? Naaawwww.....

And finally, something funny. No, wait, it's someone who spends all his time reading the funnies, and ripping their wet and throbbing hearts out. (Thanks a lot, you say? S'what you get for reading someone who goes by nihilix!)

A quick little grab-bag (mostly the pope)

Pope Ratzi does it again and Juan Cole points out he got it wrong.

The Guardian has some great diss on Pope Ratzi and the Culture War. (What? You expect the man who headed the Inquisition to be soft on Islamunists?)

UN calls oxymoronic House Intelligence Committee a bunch of liars on Iran. (WaPo)

Long day. Joyful obligations are obligations nonetheless, and I'm beat. (I must recommend fundraising parties at one's own home with margaritas and Irish coffee.)

Fascism 4: Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)

Part 1 – Islamofascism? Oh, please…
Part 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists. (Eco 1)
Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash… (Eco 2)
Part 4 – Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)
Part 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it (Eco 4)
Part 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good! (Eco 5 and last)

Part 4 of the essays on fascism, and the third post going over Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, (1995) by Umberto Eco. (Whole list reproduced at the end of the post.)

We’re over the hump, and moving in on the last part of Eco's essay. And here's:

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

The immediate thought for me was the "liberal media." Oh, and the "gay agenda." Now, these are two risible constructions. That darn liberal media, always taking the sides of the evil rich Democrats, the latte liberals, the intelligentsia. And those darn homos, with their evil plan to take over the world.

Now, of course, neither of these is real, but they can seem real, if you assume that the media should only cover things from a conservative angle, and gays should say in the closet (or be chained to a fence, beaten and left to die.) This is a clever trick used by the Right – if we're not getting our way 100%, then there must be an evil plot by the 'enemy' that is oppressing and humiliating us.

Oh – and the "War on Christians." "We can't get our 10 Commandments statue in the public school lobby, and we can't open all city council meetings with a mandatory Jesus prayer, so our Christianity is under attack!!!" Yah right.

For the Nazis, of course, this was the Jews, who had secret banks and stuff.

This is a very interesting passage from Eco's description of this point:

However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

Sound like TERRORISTS anyone we know TERRORISTS? Someone that the TERRORISTS Bush regime talks about TERRORISTS constantly? We are safe, but we're not safe.

And the force of the enemy/force levels in Iraq thing is purely coincidental.

Ellison...

Understands the dangers of a police state.

Understands that the rich are too rich for our country's good, and that the poor are too poor as a result of it.

Is a black Muslim and therefore is easier to criticism in this racist culture.

Will likely be swift-boated on the McKinney model. This campaign will follow on the 'lawbreaker' meme that the parking ticket stuff started.

Will be dogged by criticism after elected in an attempt to drown out his message.

you heard it here. (unless you heard it somewhere else)

Update: Oh, lookie-loo.
GOP foe Fine says Ellison’s unfit

Inside (Minnesota) Baseball - Primary Night

Some folks read me from the UK, Mexico, places like that (like, not the USA, dude.) So this post on Minnesota primary night might be a bit provincial for ya; sorry!

The big race, the 5th CD (Minneapolis and burbs) was won big by the National Lawyer's Guild card-totin', 5-times-a-day Mecca-prayin', thinks the pigs are the enemy'in' Keith Ellison.

A while ago, a cynical old hippie told me 'The people can't elect a President anymore. Sometimes, they can get a Senator, like Wellstone, but that's about it, and that's not too often.'

Now, it may be that Mr. Ellison will fall to the blandishments of the power circle of the Beltway. It may be that he'll be demonized and marginalized like Cynthia McKinney. It may be that the part of me that says 'Never trust a Democrat' (because he'll sell the people out) is right.

But it sure to hell looks to me like the people, The People, have won, and the system, the man, has lost.

Congratulations! Blessings!

The other DFL race of interest was the Governor's race. Mike Hatch, who I think is a conniving power-hungry bastard, won. Good for him! And since I happen to think that Mr. Hatch has an actual soul, and while he won't be perfect, some of his soul will not be sold out to the corporadoes, Gov. Hatch will be the best damn Governor in this state since fucking Wendy Anderson. (That's like, the 70s. Last millennium.)

Which is why I gleefully supported Becky Louery.

When Wellstone died - was killed - whatever, I thought Becky would be a great candidate for the Dems to run. She'd run before, and I really really like her. She's a Twin Cities hippie-liberal-progressive who moved to the Range, adopted a bzillion kids, and started a business.

Since one of the kids died in Iraq, she came out strong - very strong - against the war. She also strongly supported single-payer healthcare, and a raft of other great progressive proposals.

She also got 23%-ish of the vote tonight.

I called it a win-win; I get to vote Lourey and against the war now, and when Hatch wins, I get to kick that evil blowdried mullet-head Pawlenty out of office, and replace him with something real.

The over-20% of the vote that Lourey got was way over my expectation. I was thinking 12%, 15%. I mean, Hatch has been running for the 2006 Gov race ever since he decided not to run in 2002. He's the highest DFL officeholder in the state (Atty Gen, for those visiting) and he's smart and mean and he's gonna win. So 22-23% is a really great peace vote.

In other races, Lori Swanson beat Mr. Can I Have a Do-Over Kelley (fine - he's suburban triangulating scum (maybe not scum, maybe a more benign fungal growth)) for the AG office (her signal strength - the asshole who will be the next Governor (hooray!) raised her right; i.e., she's one of Mike Hatch's deputies.) And Mark Ritchie, who comes from the Twin Cities pinko-left, won his Sec-State primary, meaning he'll be able to abolish the reign of evil priestess Mary Evil Fucking Kiffmeyer.

(The Swanson race is still 'officially out' - so if I'm wrong, then sue me. Wait - don't sue me.)

All in all, a win for the left tonight. Nice!

Primary night pixel-watching

So I'm checking Daily Kos for the national stuff, and the very interesting Minnesota Monitor for the local stuff... as the evil hacktacktrix Mary Evil Fucking Kiffmeyer (R-ESS) inherited the really great online computer reporting Joan Growe built at the Secretary of State's office, there's the election page there as well. Go Keith, Becky (to be followed by go Hatch), Ritchie!

And since I learned that the wonderful Wege at Norwegianity wonders about the religious content of this blog, I thought I should throw in this '4 faces of Jehovah' article as well.

More as the night progresses.

Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash…

Part 1 – Islamofascism? Oh, please…
Part 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists. (Eco 1)
Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash… (Eco 2)
Part 4 – Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)
Part 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it (Eco 4)
Part 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good! (Eco 5 and last)

Back to the grindstone… this is part three of the codex nihilix on fascism. Still working on Umberto Eco's Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, (1995) (thanks Utne.)

The next two points in the 14 point list (see end of post for the full list) deal with the growth medium for fascism- what kind of society do you need to sprout those pasty white death caps of fascism.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.

Being an anarcho-pinko-hippy-satanist, I of course think that the HUGE levels of individual and social frustration are primarily the cause of a domineering capitalist greedhead oppression hierarchy that benefits a small group of rich people and corporations (and the governments they own).

There are HUGE levels of individual and social frustration all across the world. Of course, there are even huger levels of individual and social total deprivation, so the suffering of first world middle and working classes has to be put in context. Nevertheless, from rural societies torn apart by mobility demands and battered by information overload, to suburban cultural voids (one size fits all of us – and if it doesn't fit, maybe you're one of them) to inner cities that are often polluted, environmentally and economically – all of these are filled with various levels of frustration. And with the zeitgeist in the hands of corporate media, and with the political system increasingly insulated from popular influence, and with resurgent Puritan sexual mores – for god's sake – stuffing healthy sexuality back into the witch-burning bag… yeah, there's frustration.

So who benefits from this? Well, that's where a nice fascist ideology comes in. There are other groups who benefit (we need it to get really bad before the People rise in Revolution… gawd, I'm sick of that) from frustration, but a simple system of black and white, buttressed by church and tv and political elites, that gives you someone weak to blame for your problems – that kind of system does really really well.

Eco has a great analysis on this point:

In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

So your government doesn't care, all politicians are liars, your TV gives you a life that has no connection to anything, you live in a suburb where you don't know your neighbors, you have enough time to come home, do some dishes, eat, watch tube, sleep, get up for work, get drunk on the weekend… your family lives in a different town and you don't see them much and you don't really talk to them anyway… the people you hang with are from work, you don't really know them well, and you're going to lose that job and get another one with new friends…

What do you got left? YOU'RE AN AMERICAN, GODDAMMIT!!! Whee! Jingoism is fun and easy with an atomized populace drugged on TV and prescription meds!

Plus we got a big surplus of militarism and nationalism that we need to keep pumping blood and belief into. And with this crew, you got to throw the Aryan Jesus in there to do some more hating. (For the Christian America crowd – very popular with the electoral base.)

Sorry to leave you hanging after just two – here's the next, and the whole list again.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

The 14 Ways of the Blackshirt:
1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.
2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.
10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.
11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

Back in the saddle...

Oy! How I hate to be sick!

It was gruelling, but you don't want to hear about it. But the fever has broken, the fingers are fixed, and we will now resume our daily schedule.

Look, Ma! Hands!

I'm hot blooded...

When I was in high school, there were bands I loved to hate. And those long-ago (sheesh - over 25 years) decisions kinda stick with me.

The 'evil trifecta' was Loverboy, Journey, and Foreigner. Nowadays, I don't revile them sooo much... they fall into 'general nostalgia' rather than 'acute reminder that I wasn't one of the cool kids.'

Cuz I'm almost at the level of the Foreigner song, to wit:

Well I'm hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded

I've only got a fever of 102.

Ewwww.

Oh - yeah - I forgot. I was going to add another link to Norwegianity. These guys/gals rock.

Sick Day/Reds

I've got this thing where when I'm sick (fever, cough) I sleep for like 16 hours and get better.

I'm taking a sleep break; in hour 4 of the sleep marathon. (Damn nicotine! Damn H20! Without them, I'd've slept straight thru!!) So here's some idle musings.

"This blogpost is a stub" (heh - love Wikipedia)

The red left - communists, socialists, syndicalists - has always been a fractured mess in my town. There were great things - the 1934 Teamsters strike, which someone once described to me as 'the only victory the Trotskyists ever had', and the CIO was pretty red, as well as the Farmer-Labor party.

But due to a bunch of factors, probably including COINTELPRO and huge social stigmatization, there were just vicious infights and dogmatic inflexibility. Except I guess there's a decent group around - Socialist Alternative? I dunno.

Anyway, I was reading about Rosa Luxemburg, and drifted over to this description of Council Communism.

The central argument of Council Communism, in contrast to those of Social democracy and Leninist communism, is that workers' councils arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power. This view is opposed to both the Reformist and the Bolshevik stress on vanguard parties, parliaments or bureaucratic states.

The core principle of council communism is that the government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose state-run "bureaucratic collectivism". They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a workers' democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils.

Council Communists support workers' revolutions, but oppose one-party dictatorships. This has much in common with libertarian communism and most strains of anarchism, although the latter usually upholds individual liberty and autonomy as paramount over all else, which Council Communism does not.

Sounds cool to me. I always thought the 'party elite' stuff was bogus, as well as the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

Signing off (cough, cough) with more Eco to follow... =)

The pictures Bush doesn't want you to see

If you don't read Jesus' General, you should.

He's the one that made this. Like Bushflash, but with country music.

Fascism 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists

Part 1 – Islamofascism? Oh, please…
Part 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists. (Eco 1)
Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash… (Eco 2)
Part 4 – Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)
Part 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it (Eco 4)
Part 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good! (Eco 5 and last)

OK – so Bushie Islamofascism isn't really fascism – what is? This is a tough question, and one that other, harder-working people have spent lots of time on. In my research for this series, I found an excellent source: Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism: An exegesis by David Niewert (perhaps better known by his blog, Orcinus). There are lots of good people out there who have written, and recently, about this topic – but let's have at it.

Umberto Eco's short description, "Fascism is: A fuzzy totalitarianism characterized by selective populism, contempt for the weak, fear of difference, obsession with plots, and a cult of tradition," is further laid out in his piece, Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, (1995) so that's where we'll be for the next few days. (Published at Utne.)

Let's see what his intention is:

In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

And here's the list:

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.
2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.
10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.
11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

Whew! Quite a lot, and since Eco is one top-flight smart dude, it's somewhat academic. We'll take these one at a time.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

This is just more than "Oh, we had it so good in the days of the white picket fence, the little red schoolhouse, and the church on the green." This mythic time is invoked by various kinds of political whores, but you can find it mostly in the Republicans. They never talk about the darkie side… oops! Did I say darkie? That's the problem – this time (anywhere between 1900 and 1950, usually) was not exactly a good one for blacks in America. Or Indians, or gays and lesbians, or women who didn't want to bear a child. But that generally goes unsaid. Generally.

Eco takes it farther. He traces traditionalism to late Greek times, when a sort of 'mystic one-ness with secret truth' was racing through the Roman empire. The whole idea of 'secret truth' is anti-intellectual; you either have the Truth or you don't, and there's no reason to go looking for it.

This puts the anti-science movement coming from the Republican evangelical base in new light, for me. (And sources the mythic white picket fence as before the Scopes trial in 1925.) These folks are not just pushing their interpretation of biblical mythology on us, they're trying to take us back to a time of cultural reaction and stagnation, where social experimentation or humanistic science are heavily discouraged. (Like, no thanks, dudes!)

Eco also takes a shot – or fires a warning shot, perhaps – across the bow of the New Age movement. "Combining St. Augustine with Stonehenge," he says, is a symptom of Ur-Fascism. Being a neo-pagan, this raised my eyebrows. My faith, while I certainly fall in the left end of the spectrum, is by no means perfect. Good thing for me that I heartily disagree with Augustine.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.

So if fascists are anti-science, howcome the Nazis had all those high-tech weapons?

Yes, says Eco, Nazis and other fascists grooved on technology. But generally only the death-dealing type. So the corrupted soul of Ronald Reagan can rest easy nestled on his hoard of space lasers, smart bombs, depleted uranium ammo and bunker-buster nukes. B'sides, with the usually tight relationship between fascist regimes and corporate capitalism, we need at least enough science to keep the weapons makers in dough.

And Hitler's traditionalism – Blut und Boden, Blood and Earth – underlay the technological gloss. Rest assured, the hatred of modernism also runs through the soul of the Republicans.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

On this one, I'm just going to quote what Eco said:

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

Replace the phrase 'official Fascist intellectuals' with 'the right-wing pundits of the Republican propaganda machine'. There's an entire industry, from Bill Bennett to Richard Mellon Scaife to the comment trolls at Little Green Footballs who do this. And 'action without thought' is a pretty good description of Bush foreign policy.

4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.

There is no middle ground. You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists, you liberal traitor. Let's bring on the containment camps. (And think: the military runs only Fox News on base…)

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.

Eco again:

Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

Well, we've hated the Indians, the blacks, the homosexuals, the immigrants. They're destroying our white picket fence America. If we don't do something, they'll marry all our daughters and have brown babies, when they're not forbidding the straights to marry, or making black babies, or coming over the wall of the fort to scalp us all. (Sorry, the shifting target of the Dangerous Other makes for some confusion.)

More on Eco and fascism soon…

Fascism 1: Islamofascism? Oh, please…

Turning language on it's head is a trait of the Bush regime. What Orwell wrote about in his 1984, where a totalitarian state rewrites history to serve it, is the modus operandi of our current government. From a bumbling attempt to edit Wikipedia to excise a term-limits promise, to claiming no-one knew the levees could break following Katrina, to replacing Osama with Saddam with the enemy of the day (the 5 Minute Hate?), to the 'we never said 9/11 and Saddam' line, this administration has made mendacity mundane.

Take their favorite hateline du jour - "Islamofascism." This word has come up in the world, having struggled up from the jingoism ghetto of LGF and third-rate shock jocks (like Mr. Corked Bat, Rush Limbaugh, of Feminazi fame) to the very lips of the frontman-in-chief.

This is stupid, and clever, and stupid in turn. It's stupid, because fascism is a European and Western political philosophy, drawing it's roots from the Romans. It is clever, because most people don't think about fascism, having a very simple equation, to wit: Fascism = Hitler and the Nazis = Very Bad. So they don't really know much about it. It's a rebranding of the term to mean Muslims.

The stupid-in-turn part is (and this is where we get all Orwellian) that this government, the Bush regime and their lackeys in Congress and on the judicial bench, are closer to fascism than they want us to realize.

This is why they always freak out so much whenever someone on the left calls them Nazis. The MoveOn.org ads that compared Bush to Hitler are the prime example.

So with the government ACTING fascist, they need to deflect the term. Voila! Islamofascism!

Let's take a look at what leftist Italian author and professor Umberto Eco has to say.

Fascism is: A fuzzy totalitarianism characterized by selective populism, contempt for the weak, fear of difference, obsession with plots, and a cult of tradition

If you're not with us, you're a traitor. NASCAR is a sacrement, the poor are crap, gays are evil, there's a liberal media plot/Jewish banking plot/homosexual agenda/war on Christmas. The best times were the good old times. Sound familiar?

This week, we'll be taking a more in-depth look on the subject of fascism; what it is, what it isn't, and what we should do about it.

For your homework, check out the extended Eco: Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
Part 1 – Islamofascism? Oh, please…
Part 2 – Trust an Italian to know about fascists. (Eco 1)
Part 3 – Fascism cleans the sheets and takes out the trash… (Eco 2)
Part 4 – Fear the Gnomes of Zurich! (Eco 3)
Part 5 - An army boot stamping on an inhuman face -- for as long as we can get away with it (Eco 4)
Part 6 - Real Men Say Our Leader is DoublePlus Good! (Eco 5 and last)